Posted on 09/08/2002 11:45:20 AM PDT by Pat Bateman
Racism and the Second Amendment
Ken Hamblin
Special to the Denver Post
Sunday, September 08, 2002 - After a discussion with my granddaughter about the Second Amendment, I find myself refurbished, eager to probe into the political intrigue that has engulfed the Second Amendment since the Founding Fathers decreed it to be the right of every American to keep and bear arms if he or she should deem it necessary to defend hearth, home and self.
Last week I wrote about my determination to protect my 11-year-old granddaughter, Olivia Christine, from being fooled into believing that none but a constable on patrol is morally and legally enabled to own a gun. Today I want to share some of the racist history linked with keeping the benefit of the Second Amendment out of the reach of black Americans.
I believe this history laid the groundwork for a web of anti-firearms legislation that would eventually embrace every man, woman and child who takes the Second Amendment literally.
In researching this topic, I happened upon "The Racist Roots of Gun Control" by Clayton E. Cramer.
While well-meaning liberals - be they black or white - will deny it, "The Racist Roots of Gun Control" provided compelling evidence that racism underlies many gun-control laws. It documents that throughout U.S. history, gun control has been openly used as a method for keeping firearms beyond the reach of minorities.
"Beginning in 1751, when the French Black Code required Louisiana colonists to stop any blacks, and if necessary, 'beat any black carrying any potential weapon, such as a cane.' If a black refused to stop on demand, and was on horseback, the colonist was authorized to 'shoot to kill.'
"When the first U.S. official arrived in New Orleans in 1803 to take charge of this new American possession, the planters sought to have the existing free black militia disarmed, and otherwise exclude 'free blacks from positions in which they were required to bear arms.'
"The perception that free blacks were sympathetic to the plight of their enslaved brothers, and the dangerous example that 'a Negro could be free' also caused the slave states to pass laws designed to disarm all blacks, both slave and free.
"Unlike the gun control laws passed after the Civil War, these antebellum statutes were for blacks alone. In Maryland, these prohibitions went so far as to prohibit free blacks from owning dogs without a license, and authorizing any white to kill an unlicensed dog owned by a free black, for fear that blacks would use dogs as weapons.
"In State v. Huntley (1843), the North Carolina Supreme Court had recognized that there was a right to carry arms guaranteed under the North Carolina Constitution, as long as such arms were carried in a manner not likely to frighten people.
"The following year, the North Carolina Supreme Court made one of those decisions whose full significance would not appear until after the Civil War and passage of the Fourteenth Amendment.
"An 1840 statute provided: That if any free Negro, mulatto, or free person of color, shall wear or carry about his or her person, or keep in his or her house, any shot gun, musket, rifle, pistol, sword, dagger or Bowie-knife, unless he or she shall have obtained a license therefore from the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions of his or her county, within one year preceding the wearing, keeping or carrying therefore, he or she shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and may be indicted therefore."
While most gun grabbers would will deny it, much of the same emotional if not racist antagonism against arming minorities still exists in 21st-century America.
The irony in it all is that the racist opposition to allowing blacks to bear firearms provided the foundation for a cornerstone in America that would ultimately challenge the legitimacy of the Second Amendment itself.
In a great many American cities where large populations of blacks and Hispanics dwell, I believe the gun grabbers live in a state of outright fear that the state legislature might someday pass a law to allow any law-abiding member of a minority group to own or carry a firearm. Colorado is no exception to the anxiety about minorities packing guns.
Ken Hamblin (bac@compuserve.com; www.hamblin.com) writes Sundays in The Post and hosts a syndicated radio talk show.
It is hard to generalize about racism and gun control. Politics makes strange bedfellows and a lot of people are logically inconsistent, if not hypocrites.
In the 60's and 70's in Chicago I was in everything anti-da mare. We openly pursued a coalition of anti-communists and communists against Daley. I was peripherally active in the Black Panthers (one of many Whites). Some of my close Puerto Rican friends were super-active in the Black Panthers, dating them, etc. In Chicago, the Black Panthers were not ideologically monolithic. Many were libertarians. Many were statists. Many were confused.
The commonality was harrassment by politicized police units. Some police units worked directly for da mare. Others worked directly for States Attorney Hanrahan. Their job was to arrest, discredit and make ineffective any opposition to da mare, or committeeman. There were many political assassinations prior to the political assassination of Fred Hampton. eg Puerto Rican friends of mine backing RINO Lopez for Alderman against the Boss were shot in the back with the Republican precinct captain as an eye witness too timid to speak up and risk his own life.
I also knew people who saved their own life, or the life of a friend because a policeman backed down from getting into a shootout with them. So what was the crime of these people who used guns in self-defense? It was freedom of speech in opposition to urban removal and support of candidates who opposed urban renewal. So they actively used their 2d amendment rights to protect their first amendment rights.
But like I said at the beginning, people are not always logically consistent and are sometimes hypocrites. If some of the oppressed were to gain power, they would act just like the oppressors they previously denounced.
While I disagree with the inherent racism found in this law, it has to be said that at least the state of North Carolina ALLOWED free blacks to live in their state. Unlike the wonderful northern states of Illinois and Oregon to name a few. Of course those states wouldn't have gun laws affecting blacks because to them, blacks didn't even exist!!
By the way, the "Granny" bit was theoretical : In practice, no County Prosecutor would accept such a case. However, if Granny whipped out a licensed handgun- assuming she could somehow get a permit (doubtful !)-there would probably be Hell to pay: especially if she were White, and her assailant were " Other Than".
A few years back,in the City of Perth Amboy, NJ, the Police Chief,who, at the time, was a reasonably good-hearted,if rough-edged Irish fellow, was forced to shoot one of that fair city's violent Hispanic drug gang members-who was lunging at him with a knife.
No charges were filed against him-or even seriously contemplated-but the local newspaper decided to go after him: day after day, critical article after critical article.They even insisted on being present for the Chief's annual weapons qualification test ( which he passed with flying colors ).
After hounding him for about 3 months, and probing the department for disaffected officers willing to tip them off to "wrongdoing",they finally "caught him red-handed": using a City-owned car to rescue his daughter, whose car had broken down in the middle of the night a whole five miles outside the City limits !! The Chief, who had his 30 years in-with change left over-paid the City for the use of the police car, and retired. The newspaper, of course, rushed a reporter out to interview him, but did not receive a printable response.
The newspaper, which has since changed hands, had a policy of publicly tormenting anybody who owned or used a gun for any purpose ; and of treating Blacks and Hispanics as if they were endangered species. ( Nowadays, because of semographic changes, Muslims are considered a protected species ! )
damnyankees have always been really good at sel-righteousness and "speaking with forked tongue"!
free dixie,sw
people like that make me want to gag!
for dixie,sw
free the southland,sw
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
free the southland,sw
Yew said it!
The very place where folks are most likely to need to defend themselves and their homes.
it is my VERY humble opinion that that it is the BASE of most of the damnyankee elitists FEAR/HATRED of both guns & the 2d amendment!
in their view us "coloured folks" just can NOT be trusted!
for a free dixie,sw
damnyankee elitists are, imVho, largely RACISTS/fascists and hatemongers, who use fear/racism/loathing/stereotypes to advance their agenda, against the citizens, who "just aren't smart enough to handle their own affairs;thus the citizens need wise persons to direct their conduct."
free dixie,sw
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